News

Universities

UNIVERSITY OF EAST LONDON: Staff and students face a �2.9 million cuts package. This comes only a year after the opening of the expensive Docklands campus...

Going on strike

LONDON Undergound workers made front page news in London last week because they voted overwhelmingly to strike...

Why Mugabe is still smiling

LAST WEEK went well for Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe. In an important breakthrough, he succeeded in replacing the white chief justice with a reliable political ally...

Teachers defy bully Blunkett

EDUCATION secretary David Blunkett is trying to bully and threaten teachers who began industrial action this week to end the scandal of teacher shortages...

did things get better?

THOUSANDS OF former shipyard workers are to get just 5 percent of the compensation they are owed for exposure to deadly asbestos...

Buses

BUS WORKERS in Norwich took unofficial action last Saturday over traffic congestion caused by the opening of a new shopping centre...

Brown's budget

GORDON BROWN'S budget last week was hailed by papers from the Sun to the Guardian. They celebrated his "help for families" and declared that "everyone's a winner"...

121 days- still fighting

DUDLEY HEALTH workers began another three-week strike on Monday in their fight against NHS privatisation...

Fighting for justice

"THESE PEOPLE know nothing about justice! They are racist to the core and the rot goes all the way to the top, and it's got to stop!"...

Budget lets the rich off the hook

And there's worse to come 'After the election, only the NHS and the police will be protected from the private sector'Gordon Brown speaking to the TUC's John Monks, according to the Observer

Politicians should be in the dock too

Lorry driver Perry Wacker and a Chinese interpreter are on trial for the manslaughter of 58 young Chinese immigrants. Others should be in the dock alongside them-starting with Tony Blair, Jack Straw, William Hague and the major newspaper owners. The 58 people suffocated in the lorry they had been smuggled aboard on a ferry arriving in Dover.

'Their profits mean death'

A global day of action hit multinational drugs giant GlaxoSmithKline on Monday to coincide with the beginning of a court case in South Africa. GSK is just one of the big companies which this week began the court case to try to stop their drugs, or copies of their drugs, being sold cheaply to desperate people in South Africa, many of who are victims of AIDS. Demonstrators protested outside the company's headquarters in Brentford on Monday morning, and around 70 people joined a protest in Manchester on Monday evening.

Retrial change is not answer

The government has responded to a succession of cases of police incompetence which have seen innocent people jailed and others walk free-by giving more power to the police! This comes just as yet another case-that of Peter Fell-of someone being jailed for a crime they could not possibly have committed came to light. The Law Commission wants to change the "double jeopardy" rule, to allow someone acquitted of murder to be tried again.

40p will not end poverty

Tightfisted New Labour industry secretary Stephen Byers increased the minimum wage this week-but only by 40p. Byers announced the rate for over 21 year olds is to increase by nearly 11 percent. That will take £3.70 an hour to just £4.10 an hour.

London Underground: Report slams sell-off safety

A leaked report from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) confirmed this week that the drive to privatise London's tube has compromised safety. It listed 69 "significant" issues which London Underground management have not resolved.

Wrong results

The Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA), the body responsible for last year's exams crisis in Scotland where 17,000 pupils got the wrong results, has admitted that it could make mistakes on an even greater scale this year.

Pass to action

Around 1,800 Passport Office workers in the PCS civil servants' union are to be balloted for strikes over pay. The workers rejected management's pay offer by nine to one in a ballot. "It shows the underlying bitterness of people for the low pay we face and the work we have to do," one Passport Office worker told Socialist Worker.

'Sold down the river to make businessmen richer'

Around 1,000 people marched through Birmingham last Saturday to demand an end to privatisation of public services. There were 36 banners on the march including the local RAGE campaign against the closure of elderly people's homes, Defend Council Housing, the regional FBU and UCATT union banners, and several from local Socialist Alliance groups.

Teachers are right to act on shortages

Teachers in London and Doncaster were to begin refusing to cover for a record number of vacancies this week, following overwhelming ballots for industrial action. The action, by members of the NUT and NASUWT unions, came just as a survey published in the Times Educational Supplement (TES) found that secondary schools in England and Wales are short of about 10,000 teachers. Teachers in more and more areas are voting for action. Ballots are under way in Leicester, Middlesbrough, Nottingham, Portsmouth, Southampton, Manchester, Reading and Kent.

Gap protest

Two hundred of us protested outside the new Gap store in Sheffield last Saturday. A group of under 16 year olds went into Gap to demand jobs, as Gap employs children their age in other countries. We blockaded the road through the town centre before the police dragged us off the road.